The Three Big Lies of 2022: Two Concern the Pandemic

"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, Aug. 2018)

Auschwitz I. Ah yes, just like a vaccination program, except at Auschwitz there was no opting out.
(Image by Wikipedia (commons.wikimedia.org), Author: xiquinhosilva) Details Source DMCA

"Three Big Lies," you might ask? "I thought that there was only one." "Well yes," I would say. "There is indeed only one REALLY Big Lie, which is going to have very serious long-term POLITICAL consequences for the United States." As is well-known, it is indeed the Trumpian Big Lie that the 2020 Presidential election was stolen from him, the persistence of which and the belief in it of many people is currently helping the Republican Party lead the nation down the road to fascism. (While this formulation was seen infrequently in political commentary just a few years ago, it is no, unfortunately, becoming commonplace.) And note that I said that it is the Republican Party, not the "Trumpublican Party" as I have referred to it over the past couple of years, that is leading this endeavour. The Republican strategy is targeted voter suppression (and it is always targeted towards specific population groups, not just aimed at fixing a somewhat creaky system over all). It leads the way in all Republican strategy and tactics, with Trump having little if any active role to play in either the strategy or the tactics other than acting as a cheerleader. Thus, it is clear that it is the Party as a whole that is pulling the nation, or at least significant chunks of it geographically and ideologically, in that direction. Which of course is why I have taken to labelling it the Republo-fascist Party. While it is very important to note that it was Trump himself who began developing the Big Lie message of the "rigged election," actually back in 2016, it is the Republo-fascists that have taken it over for their own, broader, purposes. That is Big Lie No. 1.

Following Big Lie No. 1 of the "stolen election" come the Two Big Lies of the Pandemic, to which the bulk of the rest of this column is devoted. As it happens, they relate closely to the first and to the propaganda that the Republicans are using to drive the nation to fascism. The first of the Two Big Lies of the Pandemic is that the word "Mandate" in the (Democratic) government's program for dealing with the Pandemic and bringing it under control means forcing everybody and anybody to be vaccinated, whether they want to be or not. The second is that any national program for vaccination is comparable to the Nazi Holocaust. This latter one has not been as widely used as the false "mandates" one, but it is gaining in popularity as part of the anti-vaxx propaganda movement. It has been widely promoted by such prominent anti-vaxxers as Bobby Kennedy Jr. (self-styled-in-this-context) Left.

First as to the word "mandate." It has been widely used in the national vaccination program. However, whether from the Centers for Disease Control, or from state and local health departments which are sponsoring wide-spread vaccination programs, or from voluntary agencies which are doing the same, it has never, and I mean NEVER, been taken to mean, by any of them, forcing anyone who has not been vaccinated, and doesn't want to be, to be. "Informed consent" is one of the prime ethical principles of medical care and medical practice in this country. No one, and no agency, whether in a position of authority or acting in a voluntary capacity, in any vaccination program, has proposed dropping it, that is eliminating it, for vaccination. Where the word "mandate" has been used is, in relation to vaccination, requiring an individual to be vaccinated, should they want to engage in one or more occupations or activities.

While of course vaccination benefits the person receiving it, requiring vaccination to be in an enclosed space, whether for work or pleasure is a central part of any public health program designed to prevent the spread of a disease which, like COVID-19 is spread through the air from person-to-person. The concept behind requiring vaccination in such circumstances is that while no one can be forced to be vaccinated pe se, neither can one, on their own authority, expose others to infection with this disease. And that's what "mandate" in this context means: that if, for given occupations, one must get vaccinated, or one wants to participate in certain indoor activities, one must get vaccinated. Unfortunately, the anti-vaxx community has given to "mandate" the meaning that everyone must be vaccinated per se, whether they want to be or not. That is simply not true, and thus we have Big Lie No. 2.

To repeat. No one who would otherwise like to engage in such an occupation or activity but does not want to be vaccinated can be forced to. Rather it is only that if they wish to so engage that vaccination can be required. In fact, it would have been MUCH better if that word, "required," had been used to describe that practice, rather than the word "mandated." The latter has strong negative connotations, and thus should not have been used to describe what is in fact a voluntary activity. Although the outcome is the same, using "required" implies the reality of the situation, that is that vaccination remains a matter of choice for the individual.

But this Big Lie, that "mandated" means forced vaccination when it does not, then becomes part of the Republo-fascist campaign to describe those supporting and implementing campaigns designed to bring the disease under control. Those programs of course go beyond vaccination to masking in particular (even though it happens that masking is the best way to prevent person-to-person transmission). But the Republicans have turned to describing Democrats, public servants, voluntary agencies (like pro-masking school boards), and even individuals supporting the variety of measures required to bring this particular disease under control as "Commies" and "socialists," in their perpetuation of Big Lie No. 2, that "mandate" means forced vaccination, pr se.

But why must such a burden --- that is "requirements" as defined above, e.g., one must wear a mask to enter a restaurant --- be placed on all members of society? It is because of the nature of this disease and how it arises in individuals. There are there three main categories of disease (with certain subsets to be sure). There are non-infectious diseases like heart disease, cancer, and diabetes which arise within each individual. There may be environmental factors involved in the causation in any one individual, such as diet, air pollution and other environmental exposures, lack of sanitary facilities, work-place stress, and so on and so forth. But the disease itself occurs in each individual and is not transmissible from one person to another. Then there are the infectious diseases, which fall into three main groups.

First are the ones like cholera which are caused by elements found in the environment, in the case of the cholera bacillus in water. Second, are the infectious diseases which are transmitted to people by animals, as in malaria and yellow fever (in this case insects). Third there are the infectious diseases that are transmitted from person-to-person, like tuberculosis, pneumonia, and, wait-for-it, COVID 19. So, to control that category of infectious disease in the population that person-person transmission must be interrupted.

Every reader of this column knows that there are three principal ways of doing that: reduce or eliminate transmissibility from infected persons through immunization; mask-wearing to reduce or eliminate spreading by infected persons; and "social distancing." And so, that's why one, two or all three of those interventions can be required for participation in various kinds of activities, but, again, vaccination per se cannot be forced on anyone. Which brings us back to Big Lie No. 2: the claim, or the implication (since anti-vaxxers use the term without bothering to define it) that "mandated" means just that --- which it doesn't.

Finally, let's deal with the "Holocaust" analogy, that is that mass vaccination (and the anti-vaxxers always imply that that term means forced vaccination, which it doesn't) is just like the Nazi, "Jew-murders" Holocaust. This use of the historical event called The Holocaust indicates two things about the anti-vaxxers that use it. One is that they know nothing about what the Holocaust actually was. Second, that they are getting really desperate in trying to find arguments that they can use in their battle. And this applies to Republicans and the out-and-out fascist forces to their Right as well as to forces made up of people who regard themselves as "Left," but unfortunately in terms of program and objectives have ended up allying themselves with the various components of the Right (that is allying themselves with the Right, not becoming Rightists themselves). So here is a quick introduction as to what the Holocaust actually was, which introduction makes it clear that there is no, and I mean NO, similarity between mass public health programs which include voluntary vaccination (noting again that none of them include forced vaccination) and the Holocaust.

The Holocaust began in Adolf Hitler's mind sometime in the 1920s. Hitler was both a political anti-Semite, that is he believed that he could use anti-Semitism for classical political purposes like winning elections (sound familiar?) and an ideological anti-Semite. That is Hitler really believed that "The Jews" were one of the principal causes of the difficulties Germany faced in the 1920s, the other being the Socialists and the Communists (many of whom were Jews anyway). His solution, which he started developing in the early 1920s, was to get rid of them, to make first, Germany, then all of Europe, "Judenrein," "clean of Jews." While he toyed with other ideas like mass deportation, from the beginning he had focused on extermination.

What became the "Final Solution," that is the killing of all the European Jews that the Nazis could get their hands on was formulated first at a meeting in Berlin on December 12, 1941, and then finalized at the "Wann See Conference," on January 20, 1942. The Wann See is a lovely lake outside of Potsdam and the conference was held in a beautiful mansion overlooking it, which I happened to visit in Sept., 2007. The feeling is a totally eerie one --- that a group of men could sit around a beautiful table (and the furnishings of the times have been preserved in the mansion, now a museum) --- to decide what were the best ways of killing 6,000,000 people, while extracting the largest amount of labor from them at the least cost, along the way. This was a killing program, reflecting exactly what Der Fuerher wanted, with extra benefits for the German corporations that used slave labor.

But really? The Holocaust was really just like a vaccination program in which one simply has a perfectly free choice as to whether to receive a vaccine which has a very good chance of saving one's life, or not? One led inevitably to death. The other leads to a very good chance of saving one's life, and perhaps those of others along the way. The formulation that vaccination programs are just like the Holocaust shows one thing very clearly, as I said, that the promoters of the scheme, which is Big Lie No. 3, know nothing about the Holocaust, both its origins, its purposes, and its implementation. Nothing!

As for Auschwitz, the principal extermination camp, which I also happened to visit, in 2005, comparisons have been made between the organization of vaccination programs --- to potentially save one's life (as well as the life of others) --- and what happened to the Jews as they were disembarked from the trains at that horror. (See an excellent portrayal of this excruciating process in the exquisite Herman Wouk movie "War and Remembrance.") The prisoners (and they were prisoners, unlike persons who might or might not be vaccinated, their choice) were divided into three groups.

One was sent immediately to the gas chambers and then the bodies went to the crematoria. The second went to barracks, to wait their turn to be sent to the crowded gas chambers and then to the crematoria. The third, the "healthier" ones were sent to the I.G. Farben plant at Birkenau, about 5 miles away, where, for the most part, they were worked to death. (Oh yes, Auschwitz was never bombed. "Too far away," the commanders of the U.S. 8th Air Force, said. Except that Auschwitz survivors [there were a few] reported seeing the B-17s flying overhead on their way to bomb Birkenau and wondering why they were not bombing the gas chambers and the crematoria instead.)

The most memorable experience for me, however, was that we went on a sunny day, saw the famous "Arbeit macht Frei" sign, saw the masses of clothing, teeth, and etc. that were collected from the corpses (and left behind), saw the flimsy barracks (the gas chambers had been destroyed by the retreating Wehrmacht), and so on and so forth. But we saw all this, and heard a very detailed recounting of what the camp was really like from a very well-informed guide (Poles rotated in that position, being able to take up to about three months at a time), on a bright, sunny, summer day. When one sees a movie about Auschwitz, the weather is always portrayed as grey. But Auschwitz gets about 300 sunny days per year. And thus, most of the time the Nazis were committing their war-crimes in beautiful weather.

I will say it again, anyone who compares mass vaccination programs to the Holocaust really should learn something about the Holocaust first. Then they might come to realization of how Big a Lie (No. 3 in my list) they are telling.

     -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note:  This column was also featured 2/2/2022 at BuzzFlash